5 Year Olds

These 3 little darlings turned 5 on July 1st.

Ethan with his elephant cake.  He already has his fork ready to dig in AND already has blue frosting on his chin...

Alex and Dane with his Spiderman cake.

Lindsay with her Hello Kitty cake.

Singing happy birthday.  Both Lindsay and Alex put candles right in the eyes of their cakes and when they were each asked which piece they wanted, all three of them wanted to eat the eyes.  They've all got an eye fetish apparently!

Hooray for the Red, White, and Blue

Although I'm quite patriotic, I'm not particularly crazy about the activities of the 4th of July.  Because I didn't want Barrett to miss out, we took him to his first parade.

Here's Daddy and Bear at the Kaysville parade.  He didn't really like the noise but he didn't cry like I thought he probably would.

He really liked the flag LaLa gave him.

Lindsay and a few of her friends.

Just hanging out trying to see around the ridiculous group in front of them.  We were next to the biggest jerks on the planet!

More of our parade watchers.

We skipped the fireworks since Bear goes to bed pretty early and just hung out at Pops and LaLa's for a little while.  He wore the cutest 4th of July jammies and I love that 4 of his 7 teeth are showing here!

He's happiest when he's with his LaLa!

Possible Destinations

We don't get much of a say in where we end up living over the next 2 years but I made a list of my top choices for them just in case they ask.  We'll definitely be in 4 of these places since these are the locations of the big Fidelity sites.  I hate that there's nothing on the west coast!
Here's my preferences  (in order of best to worst)

Toronto

Jacksonville

Ireland

Raleigh

Boston

Westlake

Covington

Smithfield

Merrimack

Albuquerque

India

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down a few posts and it'll make more sense.  

Baby Theo

We had a baby shower last weekend for Michelle and baby Theo.  Michelle is about 7 months, looking so cute and is going to be the sweetest mama ever!  I'm so excited for her and her hubby Richard!

 She got some really cute things!

We missed a couple of our darling girlfriends, but we had tons of fun as always!

Yes, I totally reused the darling box that Chelse gave Bear's present in earlier that week!

Birthday Present

Last week on Bear's 7 month birthday, he finally got to meet my friend Chelse.  I only see her about once a year these days.

She was super sweet and brought Barrett a present.  Here's Bear waiting to open one of them.

She also got him some really cute toys.

Chel got out all the toys and Barrett was super glad- he ate them all!

Thanks Belle Star, hopefully we'll see you again soon!  Next time I'll take more pictures of us, like the olden days :)

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes (thanks David Bowie)

Our little family is in for some HUGE changes in a couple of weeks and I have to say, I'm not one who likes change. At all.
Neil has worked at Fidelity Investments in SLC since the month before we got married and he's going to continue working there but he just got a new job with them.  He's going to be in their general manager apprenticeship program for the next 2 years.  I honestly don't know a ton about what he'll be doing but what I DO know is that the 3 of us will be moving to a new place (not in Utah) every 6 months for the next 2 years.
We're in for a lot of excitement and plenty of adventures, but quite of bit of sadness in leaving for so long too.
So wish us luck- I don't even know where we're going first!

I've got this on my wall and we're gonna put it to the test!

Big Boy

Barrett is loving sitting at the table and counter like a big boy for his dinner these days.

He is such a good eater and he's actually really clean!  He usually keeps his arms out like this and doesn't get them in the food or on his face.  I make a bigger mess with his meals than he does!

You can never have too many girls nights!

The Celebrations Continue

Since Neil turned the big 3-0 and since he was out of town on his actual birthday, we had a couple more parties for him.

We had a barbecue at his parents house with some of our friends.

The birthday boy with the baby boy.

The swing set was a hit with everyone!  Jonny with Tayton, Kevin with Kade, and Sheena with Kaydence.

Me and Neil

Trying to light all 30 candles.

We both got burned a few times, but we got them all lit!

And Neil blew them all out on 1 try!

Sunday we had our family party, of course.  Barrett was lovin on Grandma CC!

Not quite as many candles in his cherry bars.

They all got blown out- but not by Neil.

Happy birthday old man!

Snowbird

Neil was in Boston this week for his 30th birthday, so when he got home he took a day off so I could surprise him with a fun day up at Snowbird.

We couldn't have asked for a better day- it wasn't crowded, the weather was great (except it got pretty windy at times), and it was just so beautiful.  

There were a million different things to do and they were all really fun.  We went on the bungee tramps and they were so freaking exhausting.  We did too many flips, I guess.

Then we rode the tram up the mountain,

went on a hike and went through the 600 foot peruvian tunnel,

and rode the chair lift down the mountain.

I climbed the climbing wall a couple times.

We rode the alpine slide several times.  I wasn't going to do this because I remember it being so scary from when I was little but I was really glad I went!

I rode a mechanical bull (which I will never EVER do again).

We did a ropes course

And our last activity (besides a really yummy lunch at one of their restaurants) was a sneak preview ride of the new Mountain Flyer.  They were only letting employees ride to test it out but we talked them into letting us go too :)

See!?  I told you there was TONS of fun stuff to do up there!  We had a great date celebrating Neil's birthday!~